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Aging anti-war sculpture prompts explosive debate

In this Tuesday, July 10, 2012 photo, a photographer takes a picture of "Unchained Mass," a sculpture by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Paul Conrad, in Santa Monica, Calif. After years of erosion by the ocean's salt air, "Unchained Mass" is not in danger of exploding but of falling down. With repairs estimated to cost $300,000, city officials say the work by the late Conrad is a work of art that Santa Monica can no longer afford. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

In this Tuesday, July 10, 2012 photo, a photographer takes a picture of "Unchained Mass," a sculpture by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Paul Conrad, in Santa Monica, Calif. After years of erosion by the ocean's salt air, "Unchained Mass" is not in danger of exploding but of falling down. With repairs estimated to cost $300,000, city officials say the work by the late Conrad is a work of art that Santa Monica can no longer afford. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

In this Tuesday, July 10, 2012 photo, "Unchained Mass," a sculpture by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Paul Conrad, is seen in Santa Monica, Calif. After years of erosion by the ocean's salt air, "Unchained Mass" is not in danger of exploding but of falling down. With repairs estimated to cost $300,000, city officials say the work by the late Conrad is a work of art that Santa Monica can no longer afford. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

In this Tuesday, July 10, 2012 photo, "Unchained Mass," a sculpture by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Paul Conrad, is seen in Santa Monica, Calif. After years of erosion by the ocean's salt air, "Unchained Mass" is not in danger of exploding but of falling down. With repairs estimated to cost $300,000, city officials say the work by the late Conrad is a work of art that Santa Monica can no longer afford. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

In this Tuesday, July 10, 2012 photo, "Unchained Mass," a sculpture by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Paul Conrad, is seen in Santa Monica, Calif. After years of erosion by the ocean's salt air, "Unchained Mass" is not in danger of exploding but of falling down. With repairs estimated to cost $300,000, city officials say the work by the late Conrad is a work of art that Santa Monica can no longer afford. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) ? For decades the big, black mass of chain link that's piled up outside the Civic Center has alternately awed and inspired, annoyed and confounded, and, perhaps most often, simply divided residents of this otherwise famously tolerant beach town.

Nearly three stories high and shaped like an atomic bomb's giant mushroom cloud, "Chain Reaction" was sculpted out of copper, fiberglass and stainless steel as an enduring artistic statement against nuclear war. Its creator, the brilliant Los Angeles Times political cartoonist Paul Conrad, gave it to the city as a gift in 1991, and it has remained there, four blocks from the Pacific Ocean, ever since.

During that time, everyone from passing schoolchildren to inebriated rock concert patrons leaving the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium have climbed all over it. Others have mistaken it for a seal balancing a ball on its nose or the representation of a big tree. Armchair art critics have argued relentlessly over whether it's a work for the ages or just a meaningless hunk of junk.

Whatever it is, city officials say one thing has become certain: After 21 years of people climbing over it and salt air from the ocean eating away it, "Chain Reaction" is in danger of falling down.

The city's planning staff, estimating it could cost as much as $400,000 to fix, recently recommended that if proponents of the work can't raise that money by November the city should simply get rid of it. In the meantime, they've put a fence around it (chain link of course) to protect the public.

Their proposal, however, has set off a chain reaction of its own across this 8.3-square-mile coastal city, with people from seashore bars to City Hall arguing over what to do.

"For many people it is an incredibly important symbol, an icon of Santa Monica," said Jessica Cusick, the city's cultural affairs manager. "For others, it's junk and an eyesore."

Highlighting that divide, the city's Landmarks Commission voted unanimously earlier this week to declare "Chain Reaction" a local historical monument. The move came just four months after the city's Arts Commission voted in favor of dumping it.

The new designation won't necessarily save it from being hauled away if it can't be made safe, Cusick said.

The work, made from huge links of chain big enough to secure a ship's anchor, has developed noticeable cracks over the years. Some of the links have also begun to come loose and are teetering precariously.

The problem, Cusick said, is that although it has a stainless steel frame, the work is mainly supported by fiberglass, which is deteriorating.

"The materials that it was made out of were never designed for this use," she said, adding that while fiberglass is fine for a museum piece, a sturdier material like bronze should have been used for an outdoor work.

The City Council, which has the final word on the sculpture's future, will take up the issue in November.

So far supporters have raised only about $2,500, but Conrad's son, David Conrad, said he expects that to pick up now that the piece is a recognized historical landmark.

"It shows the gravity of this work and what a really cool thing it is," he said.

Not everyone agrees.

"It's hardly historical," laughed lifetime resident James Taylor, noting that at age 55 he's been a part of Santa Monica almost three times as long as "Chain Reaction."

"When it first came out my initial reaction was, 'This is certainly ? well ? odd,'" Taylor, waiting at a bus stop just down the street from the sculpture, said as he rubbed his head and searched for the right word to describe it.

Around the corner, at the Vidiots video store, co-owner Patty Polinger is a huge fan of the sculpture, although she admits the first time she saw it her reaction was, "What is that?"

Since then she's researched its history, come to embrace it as a great example of public art and even hosted a recent documentary screening in an effort to save it. The film, "Paul Conrad: Drawing Fire," examines the life of the longtime cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times and Denver Post, who won three Pulitzer Prizes for work that skewered every major political figure of his era.

She acknowledges, however, that not everyone in the store shares her enthusiasm for the sculpting abilities of Conrad, who died in 2010 at age 86.

"One of our employees, who shall remain nameless, thinks it's ugly," she said with a smile.

From Day One, the work has evoked sometimes heated debate.

The City Council only narrowly voted 4-3 to accept Conrad's gift, which former Mayor Dennis Zane described at the time as an ugly non sequitur.

Before the vote, the public was asked to weigh in and responded 730-392 against accepting the work. The result was ignored amid concerns that Conrad critics had stuffed the ballot box.

"As was typical of my father, he had people that hated him," his son recalled with a laugh earlier this week.

Indeed, the unabashedly liberal artist's cartoons enraged many, among them the late Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, who once sued Conrad, unsuccessfully, for a cartoon that implied he was a lunatic. President Richard Nixon famously put Conrad on his "enemies list" and Frank Sinatra once denounced him for making fun of President Ronald Reagan.

In arguing against keeping "Chain Reaction," Santa Monica's planning staff didn't question Conrad's greatness as a cartoonist, but said there was little evidence to show he was much of a sculptor.

That simply isn't true, said his son, who noted his father created numerous bronze works of historical figures, including Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln. Many were done in a serious style, although Conrad portrayed Reagan as Robin Hood, maintaining he robbed from the poor and gave to the rich.

"He also did a fair amount of public art," said David Conrad, adding his father's work graces churches in Southern California, as well as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

As for what his father would think of all the hoopla "Chain Reaction" has kicked up again, Conrad thinks he'd enjoy it.

"He sure loved stirring things up."

___

Online:

www.conradprojects.com.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-07-15-Sculpture%20Squabble/id-57ab75d5843147d1893f4961dea00818

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Clinton to Myanmar: Keep up the reforms

Though media laws have been relaxed in Myanmar, reporting on politics or sensitive subjects like ethnic unrest are still subject to censorship.

By Gabrielle Paluch,?Contributor / July 13, 2012

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Myanmar President Thein Sein shake hands before a meeting at Le Meridien Hotel on Friday, July 13, in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Clinton urged President Sein to continue with economic and political reforms.

Brendan Smialowski/AP

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As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today urged Myanmar's president to continue with economic and political reforms, two newspaper editors fought media censorship battles in lower courts.

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In the past two years, Western nations have seen the new Myanmar president, Thein Sein, usher in a number of reforms, such as allowing an opposition leader, who has spent much of the past 15 years under house arrest, into the Parliament; the release of several hundred political prisoners; and the relaxing of censorship laws, leading to massive rollbacks of international sanctions.?

However, activists are quick to point out that Myanmar has a long way to go and cite the unrest in the Rakhine state in the west as perhaps as big a test for Myanmar's media as it is for its government. Though media laws have been relaxed, and the government has promised further loosening of restrictions, news media reporting on politics or sensitive subjects like ethnic unrest are still subject to censorship, as shown by the court cases against the weekly journal The Snap Shot, and another weekly publication, The Modern.

?Until now, the government has been relaxing its abusive control of the media but, as it does not know how to assist the media in the new, rapidly emerging political and economic environment ? and has initiated at least three prosecutions since the start of the year,? Reporters Without Borders said in a recent statement.

Ethnic and sectarian violence that left more than 60 dead broke out in Rakhine state last month after news spread that a Buddhist woman was raped and killed by three ethnic Rohingya Muslims.

State newspapers highlighted the ethnicity and religion of both the rape and murder victim and the suspects, who were later convicted, using an ethnic slur to refer to the men accused of the crime.

The ministry of information, responsible for controlling the press and publishing state sanctioned news, reacted by indefinitely postponing the lifting of the country-wide practice of pre-screening news copy, initially planned for June 30. It claimed private media had incited violence.

The government accused Myat Khaing, editor of Snap Shot, of defamation with the intent of inciting violence, which carries a sentence of up to seven years. The private weekly journal published an image of the victim?s corpse.

?We are facing unjust British laws,? Mr. Myat Khaing?s lawyer told reporters outside the court last week. ?The reports in question simply repeated information that had already appeared in state media and on the Internet, and appeared after demonstrations had already occurred.?

The case is scheduled to continue next week.

?Conflict in Rakhine state has shone a harsh light on the sensitivity of the media environment and the very fragile nature of the newly recovered, but partial media freedom,? said Reporters Without Borders in a statement.

Myanmar's judiciary still lacks independence, and enforces antiquated and confusing laws drafted in the colonial era that have been amended and changed by several different military governments to support authoritarian rule since 1962.

In an impromptu press conference yesterday, Aung San Suu Kyi stressed the importance of an independent judiciary and rule of law.

?Courts in Myanmar are a tool of the government,? says Nyan Win, legal adviser of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi?s party, the National League for Democracy, pointing out that many rulings are pre-determined, and rarely based on evidence. He says judges still make decisions based on directives handed down from the military.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/Um3QenvWvmg/Clinton-to-Myanmar-Keep-up-the-reforms

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India's prime minister must show some moxie to revive economy

Is India's economic juggernaut in danger of turning into a train wreck? Not so long ago, it seemed that the country's rise couldn't be stopped: the economy was expanding at nearly double-digit rates,?and everyone from global shampoo manufacturers to Western think tanks was racing to put an India strategy in place.

But by the first three months of 2012, GDP growth had slowed to a nine-year low of 5.3 percent, its eighth straight quarterly decline. Now, scarcely a week passes without news of the rupee nose-diving to a new historic low against the dollar. In a report last month, credit rating agency Standard and Poor's warned that India risks losing its investment grade rating and becoming the first "fallen angel" among the four BRIC economies. This comes on the heels of a slew of?warnings?by pundits that India can no longer take economic success for granted. And it's not simply a question of riding out the current global slowdown. Flawed government priorities, poor fiscal management, and rampant corruption all threaten the inevitability of India's rise.

It may be too early to fundamentally reassess India's?prospects. A young population, relatively high savings rate, and the lowest per capita income among the BRICs give the country the potential to return to the nearly double-digit growth rates it enjoyed until 2010. But if India's economic future remains uncertain, one thing is clear: along with the fate of 1.2 billion Indians, one man's reputation hangs in the balance. Will 79-year-old Prime Minister Manmohan Singh go down in history as the bold economic reformer who lifted India out of poverty? Or will he instead be remembered as a pithless technocrat whose government was, to borrow the assessment of historian Ramachandra Guha, "inept and incompetent beyond words."

For now, it looks like history will not judge Singh kindly. Over the course of his prime ministership, he has gone from being admired for being self-effacing and honest to being derided for his lack of courage and?leadership skills. But now he's got a chance to prove what he's made of: On June 27, a day after taking direct charge of the economy following the finance minister's resignation to run for India's largely ceremonial presidency, Singh's office?tweeted?his intention to "revive the animal spirit in the country's economy." He has his work cut out for him, to put it mildly.

When the soft-spoken economist was sworn in as prime minister eight years ago, the outlook couldn't have been more different. Middle class Indians and foreign investors alike spoke of the new prime minister with admiration and affection. Outside India, Singh was best known as the finance minister responsible for India's 1991?economic reforms. By scrapping industrial licensing and slashing tariffs, he earned much of the credit for setting an autarkic backwater on the path toward becoming a major global economy. Not surprisingly, when Singh became prime minister in 2004, many observers expected him to deepen the reforms he had pioneered more than a decade earlier. That Singh, and not populist Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi, who had led the party to an upset victory over the right-of-center National Democratic Alliance government, was in charge signaled that India's commitment to reforms was irrevocable.

For the Indian middle class, Singh's symbolic appeal extended beyond his reformist turn as finance minister. How many children born in 1932 in a village in today's Pakistan with neither electricity nor running water ended up with a Ph.D. in economics from Oxford? In a nation of political?princelings, whose constituencies are handed down like family heirlooms, the prime minister stood out as an advertisement for effort and intelligence. In a land of?rabble rousers, where caste and religion remain the surest tickets to political power, the respected economist embodied quiet technocratic efficiency. And Singh's Sikh faith -- shared by only 2 percent of his compatriots -- showcased India's storied pluralism.

Burnishing the inspirational arc of Singh's?life story?was a reputation for personal probity acquired over a lifetime. The prime minister was seen by many as the sort of person who wouldn't offer an old friend a ride in his official car lest he waste government petrol. His family, the Achilles heel of many a Third World leader, maintained a similar sense of decorum. Instead of careening around town in bullet-proof SUVs, gun-toting guards in tow, or riding dodgy business deals to?overnight millions, Singh's three daughters stayed out of the public eye. One of them is a history professor in Delhi; another is a little-known writer married to a civil servant; the third works for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York.

Eight years into Singh's term, however, the script has gone horribly awry. The vaunted economist's government has taken the sheen off the economy and India's Mr. Clean sits atop a mountain of dirt that has sparked the largest nationwide?anti-corruption protests?in a generation.

First, the economic slowdown. For the first four years of Singh's tenure, growth averaged 8.7 percent, enough to transform talk of India eventually catching up with China from a cruel joke into a distinct possibility. Between 2005 and 2010, India pulled 40 million people out of poverty. According to India's?Planning Commission, the poverty rate declined from 37.2 percent to 29.8 percent over the same period. But, as the University of Chicago's Raghuram Rajan?points out, the Singh government deserves little credit for this high growth?or the poverty alleviation that accompanied it. For the most part, India simply rode a combination of the momentum created by previous reforms and a buoyant global economy.

To his critics, Singh's flagship economic program -- which promises 100 days of government-provided work a year for any villager who wants it -- has become a byword for populist profligacy. Predictably enough, for a country ranked 95th out of 183 on Transparency International's?Corruption Perceptions Index?-- below authoritarian China and luckless Zambia -- the program is known to be riddled with?graft. It has also distorted labor markets while producing few physical assets of lasting value. Brown University political scientist Ashutosh Varshney?estimates?that the employment guarantee's price tag of $6-7 billion per year costs India about as much as the home ministry -- which is responsible for internal security for the entire country. Along with unsustainable fuel and fertilizer subsidies, it has pushed the federal government's fiscal deficit to 5.6 percent this year instead of the budgeted 4.6 percent.

And Singh's jobs program is not the only indication that India is resurrecting its statist past. Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal is best known for a clumsy effort to muzzle the Internet in the name of social harmony, and a quixotic quest to build a cheap Indian?tablet computer that nobody wants to buy. Jairam Ramesh, a leading pro-reform voice in the 1990s, used his stint as Singh's environment minister (2009-2011) to stall?development projects, including a proposed steel plant by the Korean firm POSCO, and a bauxite mine owned by London-based Vedanta Resources.

Meanwhile, the business newspaper?Mint?dubbed Pranab Mukherjee, Singh's finance minister until his recent elevation as frontrunner for the presidency, "the?worst finance minister?India's had." The popular news website?First Post?called Mukherjee "a relic of that long-ago time, when we had peak income tax rates of 97 percent." On his watch, prompted by howls of protest by a mercurial coalition ally, New Delhi reversed a long-awaited decision to allow foreign companies such as Wal-Mart to own a majority stake in so-called multi-brand retail stores.

Mukherjee also bludgeoned India's reputation for rule of law by legislating a retroactive tax aimed at British telecom multinational Vodafone that effectively overturns a landmark Supreme Court decision earlier this year that went in favor of the company. (The government is trying to collect $2.2 billion in taxes it says it is owed from Vodafone's 2007 purchase of Hutchison Whampoa's Indian assets from a Cayman Islands subsidiary.) Regardless of one's view of the Supreme Court verdict -- seen as unfair by those who frown upon companies structuring deals in offshore tax havens -- the government's end run around the court creates an unsettling precedent for future investors. Who can be certain that the rules in India won't suddenly be changed midstream? Last week, Singh?hinted?that he may review the unpopular decision.

As for corruption, though Singh's personal decency remains largely above reproach, nobody can say the same for his government. On Singh's watch a new "resource raj" has risen from the ashes of the license-permit raj, in which the government, not private business, decided everything from the location of a factory to how many widgets it could produce. Today, businesses dependent upon government discretion -- particularly in mining, telecom, infrastructure, and real estate -- have become bywords for staggering corruption. Government auditors estimate that the country may have lost as much as $40 billion in the so-called?2G scam, which involved selling telecom spectrum to favored bidders at throwaway prices. More recently, attention has shifted to government coal reserves allegedly sold to private companies for a song.

All this has led commentators to?reevaluate?Singh's place in India's history. With the benefit of hindsight, credit for India's first burst of reforms belongs less to Singh and more to?the prime minister who hired him, the dour and largely forgotten P. V. Narasimha Rao, who held the country's top office for five years in the early 1990s. Arvind Panagariya, who wrote the definitivehistory of the Indian economy, calls Rao the "architect of the new India." In a nutshell, Rao believed that only reforms could lead India to prosperity. As long as he provided political cover, Singh delivered. Under Gandhi, advised by a kitchen cabinet of activists and do-gooders, once again Singh has fallen into line. For the past eight years, his government has chosen to privilege redistribution over growth.

This pattern also resolves another paradox of Singh's public life: If he was such a great reformer, then why did he serve the stifling license-permit raj with such distinction for decades? Prior to 1991, he served as chief economic advisor, finance secretary, head of the planning commission and governor of the central bank. In the late 1980s, he did a stint as the secretary general of the South Commission, a kind of global Third World think tank founded by Tanzania's Julius Nyerere. In short, Singh's poor economic record as prime minister is exactly what you would expect if you had looked at his entire career rather than merely his role as finance minister at the dawn of liberalization.

For India, Singh's hopeful tweets notwithstanding, it's time to draw lessons from the failures of the past eight years. In terms of politics, it makes no sense to divide political and administrative power, as between Gandhi and Singh. As in other parliamentary democracies, and for most of India's history as an independent country, the top job should go to the country's most powerful politician. Had the populist Gandhi -- reportedly unsure of her policy smarts and wishing to tamp down controversy over her Italian birth -- not handed Singh the reins of government, most people wouldn't have made the mistake of expecting reforms to begin with. They will remain implausible as long as Gandhi remains wedded to the idea that India needs welfare programs more than it needs jobs.

The moral of the story: both Indians and international investors need to become more skeptical of promises not backed by actions. Singh may have presented a reform-friendly image to the outside world based on one small slice of his past. But his government's domestic priorities on the ground, even when freed of the compulsion of seeking communist support after re-election in 2009, remained solidly redistributionist. Of course, for Singh himself these lessons likely won't matter. With less than two years to go in what is almost certainly his last term in office, it may be simply too late to pick up the pieces of his halo.

Source: http://www.freedompolitics.com/news/economy-3854-india-digit.html

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Kolbas Holds the Lead at Lincoln Women's City Golf

Lincoln native Steph Kolbas takes a commanding lead at into Sunday's final round of the 2012 Lincoln Women's City Golf Tournament., after shooting a 73 in Saturday's second round.

Kolbas is a two-time winner of the tournament winning in 2010 and 2011 and looks to make it three in a row Sunday.

Jennifer Kirkland trails Kolbas, shooting a 75 on Saturday, Tammy Poe shot a 79, Joy Kovar netted a 82 and Sherrie Nelson shot a 80 rounding out the top five.

Sunday's championship round is set for Pioneers Golf Course in Lincoln.

Source: http://www.1011now.com/sports/headlines/Kolbas_Holds_the_Lead_at_Lincoln_Womens_City_Golf_162488486.html

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Mannings rallying around Peyton's comeback

Associated Press Sports

updated 7:14 p.m. ET July 13, 2012

THIBODAUX, La. (AP) - Even for the Manning brothers, this offseason has been extraordinary, and they have high hopes for how the rest of 2012 could turn out.

Peyton Manning says he still has more rehabilitation ahead from neck surgery, but it's nice to throw passes at his family's football camp in south Louisiana this weekend - something he could not do a year ago. He's also looking forward to training camp with his new team, the Denver Broncos, only his second NFL club after spending his first 14 pro seasons in Indianapolis.

The Giants' Eli Manning says he's enjoyed celebrating his second Super Bowl triumph and following his older brother's comeback, knowing how tough it was for Peyton to sit out last season. He says both brothers envision a great season ahead.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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How Brees' deal impacts others QBs

????New Orleans gave its star quarterback a $100 million deal, which poses some interesting questions down the road and for Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.

PFT: Brees' new deal includes $40M in 2012

PFT: Drew Brees, the Saints' franchise quarterback who was absent all offseason after he and the team couldn?t come to terms on a new contract, has agreed to sign a five-year, $100 million deal.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/48181196/ns/sports-nfl/

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Prosecutor: Iowa-based CEO carried out $200M fraud

FILE - This Monday, April 4, 2011 file photo shows Russ Wasendorf, Sr., CEO of Peregrine Financial Group, Inc., in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A complaint filed Friday, July 13, 2012 in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids says Wasendorf, Sr., 64, made false statements to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission about the value of customer funds held by his company, Peregrine Financial Group, Inc. A press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office says Wasendorf was arrested Friday by FBI agents and is due in federal court in Cedar Rapids for an initial appearance. (AP Photo/Waterloo Courier, Rick Chase, File)

FILE - This Monday, April 4, 2011 file photo shows Russ Wasendorf, Sr., CEO of Peregrine Financial Group, Inc., in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A complaint filed Friday, July 13, 2012 in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids says Wasendorf, Sr., 64, made false statements to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission about the value of customer funds held by his company, Peregrine Financial Group, Inc. A press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office says Wasendorf was arrested Friday by FBI agents and is due in federal court in Cedar Rapids for an initial appearance. (AP Photo/Waterloo Courier, Rick Chase, File)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009 file photo, Russ Wasendorf, chairman and chief executive officer of PFGBest poses at the new building nearing completion in Cedar Falls, Iowa. A complaint filed Friday, July 13, 2012 in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids says Wasendorf, Sr., 64, made false statements to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission about the value of customer funds held by his company, Peregrine Financial Group, Inc. A press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office says Wasendorf was arrested Friday by FBI agents and is due in federal court in Cedar Rapids for an initial appearance. (AP Photo/Waterloo Courier, Brandon Pollock)

(AP) ? The chief executive of an Iowa-based brokerage firm admitted in a tell-all suicide note that he carried out an elaborate fraud scheme in which he embezzled at least $100 million from customers over two decades, federal investigators said Friday.

FBI agents arrested Peregrine Financial Group Inc. Russell Wasendorf Sr. at a local hospital Friday and he appeared in federal court later in the day on charges of lying to federal regulators. Court documents detail a wide-ranging fraud scheme in which Wasendorf apparently fooled colleagues, customers and regulators by creating fraudulent financial records.

Those documents detailed a note found in Wasendorf's car Monday, when authorities found him unresponsive in the vehicle outside the company's headquarters in Cedar Falls. "Through a scheme of using false bank statements I have been able to embezzle millions of dollars from customer accounts," Wasendorf wrote, adding that the fraud had gone undetected "until now."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan said during the court hearing Friday that Wasendorf could face a wide range of additional criminal charges and decades in prison for what the prosecutor called a $200 million scheme in which Wasendorf embezzled customer funds for 20 years.

Wasendorf, who investigators said tried to commit suicide by hooking up a tube to his car's tailpipe, had been hospitalized since Monday. Deegan and the FBI declined comment on his arrest, but Chicago-based lawyer Thomas Breen said FBI agents "removed him from his hospital bed" at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. Breen said he was on the phone with Wasendorf at the time.

The 64-year-old executive walked calmly and was wearing jeans and a polo shirt during his brief court appearance Friday. The judge scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to determine whether Wasendorf should be held in jail pending his trial. Deegan said Wasendorf was a flight risk.

Peregrine Financial Group, which marketed itself as PFGBest, filed for bankruptcy Tuesday. It was the same day the industry's top regulator filed civil fraud charges alleging the firm misused customer money and falsely claimed a bank account contained more than $220 million when it actually had about $5 million. The money in that account belonged to customers and was supposed to be kept separate from Peregrine's own money.

An affidavit by FBI agent William Langdon said that when authorities found Wasendorf in his vehicle Monday, they also found a suicide note addressed to his wife and a signed statement in which he detailed his fraud.

"The forgeries started nearly twenty years ago and have gone undetected until now. I was able to conceal my crime of forgery by being the sole individual with access to the US Bank accounts held by PFG," he wrote, according to Langdon.

Wasendorf said he faced "a difficult decision" when his access to capital was limited earlier in his career.

"Should I go out of business or cheat? I guess my ego was too big to admit failure," he wrote. "So I cheated, I falsified the very core of the financial documents of PFG, the bank statements."

Wasendorf said he used computer software, scanners and printers to "make very convincing forgeries of nearly every document that came from the bank," including statements, letters and other correspondence, the affidavit says.

"I could create forgeries very quickly so no one suspected that my forgeries were not the real thing that had just arrived in the mail," he wrote.

He said he used "careful concealment and blunt authority" as the company's founder and sole shareholder to hide the fraud. He said he ordered bank statements be delivered directly to him unopened, that he was the only person with access to the firm's online bank account, and he told the bank that he was the only representative they should call, according to court documents.

Wasendorf said he also fooled regulators checking how much money his company held by opening a Cedar Falls post office box in 2006 in the name of US Bank, an address he put on the counterfeit bank statements he created. Auditors mailed confirmation forms to the address, and he sent phony documents back showing the accounts contained "the amount I needed to show."

"When online banking became prevalent, I learned how to falsify online bank statements and the regulators accepted them without question," he added.

Wasendorf confirmed that he wrote the statement and that it was true during an interview with investigators Monday at the hospital in Iowa City, Langdon wrote. He estimated "the amount of loss due to his fraud exceeded $100 million," Langdon added.

On Friday, officials from another industry regulator, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, were on site at Peregrine's Cedar Falls offices to examine the firm. The agency regulates broker-dealers that buy and sell stocks. The losses apparently are centered in the part of Peregrine that sold commodity options and futures.

The criminal complaint alleges that Wasendorf made false statements to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission about the value of customer funds held by his company from 2010 until recently.

Deegan said he would present the case to a grand jury and seek additional charges. Breen, the Chicago attorney, said he'd planned to represent Wasendorf but learned Friday that Wasendorf's assets were frozen, so he'll have to be represented by a public defender.

Wasendorf's son, Russ Wasendorf, Jr., the company's president and chief operating officer, also received a copy of the statement from his father admitting to the fraud at his office Monday, the FBI affidavit said. He told authorities he checked his father's claims by obtaining a bank statement that showed a balance of $6.3 million ? an account that regulators were told had $221.7 million as of December.

The charges are a stunning downfall for Wasendorf. He ran the company for years from Chicago before relocating its headquarters in 2009 to Cedar Falls, where he was a highly regarded businessman and philanthropist.

___

AP reporter Daniel Wagner contributed to this report from Washington.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-07-13-Failed%20Brokerage-Charges/id-53839bbb42784a638ab03de44b93fe98

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Fur-ever in love... dog wedding with all the trimmings costs world-record ?102,000

The wedding, held to raise funds for the Humane Society of New York, brought together bride Baby Hope Diamond, a white Coton de Tulear,? and a poodle named Chilly Pasternak.

After the ceremony, the couple were given a Guinness World Record for the most expensive pet wedding.

Baby Hope was adopted by celebrity animal activist Wendy Diamond after her Maltese terrier Lucky Diamond died of cancer last month. Lucky was to have been the bride, but the wedding served as a celebration of her life.

Lucky was herself a rescue dog but became a celebrity in her own right when Wendy Diamond began taking pictures of her with the stars she encountered on the red carpet. Lucky ended up with her own Guinness Record as the animal most photographed with famous people.

The fairy-tale wedding was held at Manhattan?s Jumeirah Essex House hotel and included a seven-piece orchestra, doggie buffet, ring-bearers and flower girl. Tickets cost $250 per person.

Source: http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/furever-in-love-dog-wedding-with-all-the-trimmings-costs-worldrecord-102000-7941724.html

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